How to Make Chapati Dough (Roti Dough) in a Food Processor

I have been using my Kitchenaid stand mixer for making roti dough for a couple years now and would argue that buying one just for this is probably worth it. One of my least favourite activities in the kitchen is making chapati dough from scratch and anyway, I am all for technology taking over to make our lives simpler. Recently, I did a poll on my Facebook Page to see what people thought of a food processor and whether I really needed one. An overwhelming number of 'ayes' later, I am now a few hundred dollars poorer and richer by one Magimix. The review of the food processor itself is for another post but today let's look at how to make chapati dough in a food processor.

A few things before we start:

• It's important to have a powerful enough motor to be able to knead dough since it's a 'tough' job for a machine. Make sure you check manufacturer's manual to make sure if you can make dough in your food processor
• Keep all ingredients ready before you begin
• I usually add a bit more water to the dough than needed, for smoother kneading, and then dust more flour and finish the final knead by hand

HOW TO MAKE CHAPATI DOUGH IN FOOD PROCESSOR

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Makes enough dough for 7 chapatis

INGREDIENTS:
1.5 cups of atta / Indian whole wheat flour
~ 1/3 cup of water
1/2 tsp of salt (or to taste)
2 tsp of oil, ghee, or butter

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Make sure your food processor comes with a dough blade. It will have blunt edges but will look the same as your regular chopping blade.

2. Add the atta + salt to the largest bowl in your processor (in case it comes with multiple bowls - mine has three).

3. Close the lid and start the machine. If there are speed settings, start at the lowest speed to make sure the salt is mixed properly with the flour. With the machine running, add water in a slow trickle through the opening on the lid. Adjust water according to how much you need. This depends on the flour quality, consistency, humidity where you live, etc.

You will start to see the dough forming slowly as you add water. Stop and go so you are able to control the dough consistency. It's very easy to add more water so be careful!

4. Soon you will find the dough forming into a ball and 'cleaning' up the sides of the bowl. Add oil at this stage and let it run for a minute longer.

Done! The dough will be a bit sticky if you'd added the right amount of water. Take out, punch down, dust more flour if required, and let it rest for about 30 mins before proceeding to make chapati, roti, paratha, etc.

You can make pizza dough, bread dough, and even pie crust in your food processor. The method is pretty much the same, except that you would add the ingredients as necessary for what you are making. I plan to try pizza dough next and will update you on how that went.

You can also scale the quantities according to the capacity of your food processor bowl to make chapati / roti dough in bulk and store it in refrigerator up to 2 days for later use.

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How to Make Chenna - Chenna Recipe from Milk for Indian Sweets

Chenna is the base for many delicious and varies Bengali sweets like rasgulla, rasmalai, sandesh, etc. The process of making chenna is identical to making paneer at home, you just stop short of pressing the cheese with weights to make it firmer. Both TH and I love Bengali sweets since they are so heavily milk-based and this year, what with us being in a new country and all, I decided to make some quick and easy sweets for diwali that we both enjoy.

Choosing the right type of milk is very important for making chenna or paneer at home. If possible, find non-homogenised, full-cream cow's milk. If you have made paneer before and know that the milk you buy works, then go ahead since the process, as mentioned, is identical. However, chenna is best used as soon as it's made and converted into sweets rather than freezing, etc. This is because chenna has a much smoother texture which may get compromised if you freeze it for a long time and we need it to soak up other flavours when making sweets like rasgulla and sandesh.

{Check out my easy 10-min Rasmalai recipe}

So my word of advice? Plan how much chenna you need and make only the sufficient amount, quickly turning it into whatever you desire. It's hard to go wrong with your sweet recipe if you start with a delicious mound of fresh, homemade chenna! Check out a full list of Diwali Recipes here.

{Have some extra chenna in hand? Make this delicious Channar Payesh in 15 mins}

HOW TO MAKE CHENNA FROM MILK

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Makes 1 cup chenna

INGREDIENTS:
500 milk of full fat milk
3 tbsp of lime juice (see notes)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Bring the milk to a rolling boil and then lower flame to simmer.

2. Add 2 tbsp of the lime juice and stir gently.

You will find that the cheese starts separating from the whey. The whey needs to turn a clear, faint green. If it still seems milky, add some more lime juice. I needed the full 3 tbsp.

3. When the cheese has completely separated (should take about 2-3 mins on very low flame), turn off heat and pour into a colander lined with a cheese cloth or clean cotton cloth.

4. Gather the ends and squeeze tightly. Take care though, the chenna inside will be extremely hot. Run this under some cold water at the sink. This step is to remove the flavour the lime juice imparts to the cheese.

5. Tie the cloth ends to the tap and let the remaining whey and water drip off. I left it like this for about 30 mins.

6. Transfer the chenna into a wide bowl or plate and knead well with your fingertips.

The crumbliness will soon give way to a smooth consistency. The chenna won't be sticky at any point. Gather together into a ball and proceed to make whatever sweet you have in mind for this Diwali festival season.

NOTES:
- Ever since Anu gave me this tip, I had started using only buttermilk for separating milk to make paneer and chenna. I didn't have any in hand this time so used lime juice. If you use buttermilk, there's absolutely no other flavour in the chenna except the milkiness which would you expect. For 500 ml milk, I'd use about 1/4 to 1/3 cup buttermilk
- Use the chenna immediately in your sweets recipes. This channar payesh is a great way of using up fresh chenna.

For chenna recipe in Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, etc, please use the Google Translate button on the sidebar. 

Make Your Own Muffin or Cupcake Moulds at Home ~ Quick Tips

Learn how to make your own muffin or cupcake tray at home using readily available utensils

Baking can seem a daunting thing when you are just starting out and realise you need different types of baking trays to get started making cupcakes and muffins. It's often not a great idea to go out and buy everything you see or feel you need especially if you are just trying your hand at baking and may not even end up liking it that much (although that's hard for me to imagine!). That's why learning how to make some basic bakeware at home really helps. So here's how you can improvise and make your own cupcake tray using an Indian spice box and small cups inside. 

All of us have to start baking at some point in our lives. I started when I was 10 because I have a mom who baked a lot. Even then, we had just 2 cake trays - one was round and the other was heart-shaped. We had no cupcake trays so we never baked cupcakes.
But, that really shouldn't stop you. Here's a quick tip on how to bake cupcakes with no cupcake moulds using your Indian spice box - or masala dabba as we call it back home.

- Take out the individual holders inside and clean it if you were using it for your spices

- Dry well with a clean kitchen towel

- LIne evenly with aluminium foil (this is for even baking)

That's it! Pour your batter 3/4 of the way and play on a baking tray in the oven. You will get perfectly shaped cupcakes of the same size each time and you don't have to spend on an extra cupcake tray unless you bake very often.

My sis and I also did this for the perfect pound cake we baked when back in Kottayam. We I mentioned, our mom only has 2 trays and both were too big for the amount of batter we had so we improved by using the masala dabba container. We removed the smaller containers from inside), lined it with aluminium foil, and baked as normal.